Words With Friends free not working - "Updating...this may take a few minutes"

[onlinespending]

I downloaded Words With Friends on my Lumia 1020 and after logging in with my email it just sits there with the note "Updating...this may take a few minutes". I've waited several minutes and nothing. The app is unresponsive while this happens. I've closed the app and restarted it. I've restarted my phone. I've uninstalled it and re-installed it. Same thing every time.

Is there anyway to get this to work, or is this Zynga's way of forcing you to buy the $3 paid version (which may also not work properly)?

 

[onlinespending]

I uninstalled it, restarted the phone. Reinstalled it. And now I can at least play games (used Facebook login this time to change things up). But the app freezes the phone constantly requiring a hard restart. This is an absolute piece of crap.